


It Doesn't Feel Like Home

by Centimeterworm



Series: It Happened In Hometown [1]
Category: Deltarune (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Gen, Minor Violence, Platonic Relationships, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-23 06:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17075075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Centimeterworm/pseuds/Centimeterworm
Summary: Kris and Asriel play video games.





	It Doesn't Feel Like Home

* * *

 

_There are CDs under the bed.  Classical, jazz, religious ska…_

_There’s also a game console.  There’s one normal controller and one knock-off one._

 

* * *

 

There was a knock on the bedroom door.

“Hey, Kris?  Would you like some lunch?”

Kris Dreemurr looked up from their colouring.  They had a few dozen sheets of blank printer paper scattered around on their bed, some wrinkled, some crumpled.  A tiny cardboard box of assorted crayons with a tear across it lay by their elbow, its contents piling into the depression their body made in the mattress.

Kris shrugged.  “I guess.”

Asriel nudged the door open and peeked inside.  “Mom just made some sandwiches. We’ve got chips and lemonade too.”

“What kinda sandwiches?”

“PB and J.”

“What kinda jam?”

“Apricot and peach.”  Asriel gave them a smile.

Kris sighed.  “Can I just do peanut butter?”

Asriel nodded.  “I’m sure that’s okay.  Will you come down to eat with us?”

“...yeah, okay.”

Kris jumped off the bed.  A few crayons hit the carpet and rolled around.  Kris accidentally stepped on one and broke it half.  Asriel winced, but he tried to cover it up as best he could.

“Alright.  Come on. Let’s go.”

The two of them moved down the hallway towards the stairs.  Asriel reached out to put a hand on Kris’ shoulder. Kris jumped and snapped away from it.

“Stop.”

Asriel flinched.  “Oh! Oh, Kris, I’m sorry!  I forgot about—”

Kris ignored them and ran off ahead, charging down the stairs into the kitchen.  Asriel sighed and followed.

“Oh, Kris!  There you are!”  Toriel smiled at them and placed another two slices of fluffy cream-coloured bread on a floral-print plate.  “Thank you for coming down to join us! I was worrying we would not see you all day!”

Kris walked up to the countertop and stood on their tiptoes to look over it.  “Can I just have peanut butter on my sandwich?”

Toriel nodded.  “Of course. Would you like some chips?”

“Do you have the blue corn ones?”

“Ah…”  Toriel hesitated midway through reaching for the jar of _Kiddo Funz_ peanut butter.  “I’m sorry, Kris.  I forgot to pick those up last time I was at the store.  I’ll get them next time, okay?”

Kris said nothing.

“Would you like some Poptato Chisps instead?  Just for now?”

“Nah.”

Toriel blinked.  “Okay. How about some applesauce?”

“Does it have strawberries in it?”

“...No.  But it has cinnamon and pear.”

“No, I don’t like pears.”

Toriel sighed and nodded.  “Okay. I will remember strawberry next time I go to the store, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Asriel?  Would you like some applesauce?”

“I’d love some, mom.”  Asriel came into the kitchen and took his plate to the table.  “Thank you.”

“Of course, dear.”

Kris reached up over the counter and tapped their plate.  “Toriel? I don’t want the crusts.”

Toriel froze halfway through putting peanut butter on a slice of bread.  “That’s… I…” She set the bread down and put a hand on her face. “...Okay.  I will cut them off for you if that is what you would like.”

Kris watched as Toriel took care to shave the crust off the bread.  Asriel watched from the table and frowned.

“Kris?  Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Kris looked over at him and stared.  “What?”

Asriel groaned.  “Say ‘thank you’.”

“Oh.”  Kris looked back at their plate, and then back at Asriel.  “...Why?”

Asriel gaped at them.  “Because it’s polite! She’s your mom, Kris!”

“Asriel!”  Toriel glared at him.  “Do not talk to your sibling like that!”

Asriel went silent and returned to his sandwich.

“Kris…”  Toriel looked down at the shaggy mop of brown hair.  “Asriel has a point. It is only polite to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when somebody does something kind for you.”

Kris looked back up at her blankly.  “...Okay.  Fine.”

She put the bread together and handed them the plate.  “Here you go.”

Kris accepted it, stared at it for a moment, and then looked back up at her.  “Thank you.”

Toriel smiled approvingly.  “You are very welcome, Kris.”

They all sat down at the table and ate.  Asriel got up a couple of times to refill his and Kris’ lemonade.  Kris sat with their knees tucked into their chest and held the sandwich out in front of them like a shield.  The old wooden clock on the kitchen wall filled them all with _ticks_ and _tocks_ , and each one felt like a brick dropping.

“Hey, mom, I’ve been meaning to ask you…”  Asriel wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.  “I’ve been thinking that it would be pretty fun to try out for hockey this year.”

“Oh!  I thought you were going to stick with karate?”

“I am!  But I just wanted to try out for it, y’know?”  He played with one of his ears unconsciously. “I was…  I was thinking, so long as I make the team and the coaches are okay with it, that maybe Kris could join us during practices.  I could teach them how to skate and we could do some hockey in our spare time, y’know? On weekends and stuff.”

Toriel smiled wanly.  “I think that might be quite fun.  So long as you are careful and nobody gets hurt.”  She looked over at Kris, who was picking their sandwich apart bit by bit, and eating each piece one at a time.  “Kris? Sweetheart? Does that sound like something you might like?”

Kris chewed a piece of sandwich far longer than they needed to, and swallowed it.  “I dunno. I guess.”

“Well, you do not have to decide today.  We have about a month before—”

Kris put their sandwich down.  “Is hockey the one where you have to hit the ball with a big stick?”

Asriel chuckled.  “Actually that’s _baseball_.  Hockey is—”

“I don’t like the big stick thing.  I don’t wanna hit stuff.”

Asriel stuttered and fell silent.

Toriel looked between the two of them and put her hand across the table towards Kris’.  “It is okay, Kris. We are not trying to force you to do anything you don—”

Kris snatched their hand away.  “I don’t like hitting things. I don’t wanna hold the big stick.”

“It’s called a _bat_ , Kr—”  Asriel shut his mouth at a look from his mother.

“It’s okay, Kris.”  Toriel rested her hands in her lap.  “If you do not want to do baseball or hockey, we can find something that you l—”

“When’s dad coming back?”

Toriel’s hands clenched in her lap.  Asriel made a tiny, strangled sound.

The deafening _tick-tock_ from the kitchen crashed around the table, the den, and the house.  It echoed off the old furniture, the dusty TV, the bookcases, and the three people sitting down for a lunch together.  Kris looked between Asriel and Toriel. The finger-pecked peanut butter sandwich sat forgotten on their plate.

Toriel took a deep, shuddering breath.  “A-Asriel… Would you… Why don’t you and Kris go downstairs and play some games for a little while?”

“W-what?”  Asriel was out of his chair, an indignant growl in his throat.  “I have practice in an hour! I need to—”

“ _Do not argue with me!_ ”  Toriel hiccoughed and hid her face behind a hand.  “Please, just… Just for a little while, Asriel. I will drive you to practice at a quarter past the hour.”

Asriel stood there, his face a trembling mess, his shoulders bunched.  Then he sniffed and unclenched his fists. “Fine.” Hands in his pockets, He trooped past Toriel towards the stairs to the basement.  “Come on, Kris.”

Kris sat in their chair, hugging their legs and staring up at Toriel.  

“Go on, Kris.”  Toriel sniffed and looked her child in the eyes.  “Please be good and go with your brother, okay?”

Kris hesitated, then slid off their chair and ran past Asriel to the basement.  Asriel followed the rapid patter of their feet on the steps and disappeared around the corner.

As soon as they were gone, Toriel got up from the table.  She collected two empty plates and one half-empty one. She put the plates in the dishwasher, then wrapped the sandwich up in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for when Kris got hungry later.  She put the bread and chisps away, wiped off the counters and dried them, and turned off the light in the kitchen.

She went upstairs to her bedroom, shut the door and locked it.  From her end table she took out an old CD and put it inside an old CD player.  She skipped a few tracks and pressed play. As the music started, she laid down on her bed—king-size—grabbed one of the pillows, and held it to her chest.

_She broke down and let me in_

_Made me see where I’ve been_

_Been down one time_

_Been down two time_

_Never goin’ back again..._

Certain that her children couldn’t hear her, Toriel choked and gasped and began to sob.

 

*  *  *

 

“Which character do you want to play as?”

Kris picked up the knockoff controller with a sticky control stick and some blue duct tape around one of the grips.  “I wanna play as Dueterro.”

Asriel gave Kris a worried look as he sat down on the shaggy green basement carpet.  “Are you sure? Dueterro is really hard to use if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Kris glared at him from the couch.  “ _Dueterro_.”

“Okay, okay.  It’s your choice.”  Asriel flicked the control stick around the diverse and colourful character roster on the screen.  “I think I’ll be Hyperion.”

“You’re _always_ Hyperion.”

“Duh.  Because Hyperion is _awesome_.”

“Not really.  He’s too big and slow.  All of his moves take for _ever_.”

“That’s because you need to time them right.  He’s slow but he hits like a train.” Asriel leaned back against the couch and pushed the big flashing _START GAME_ button at the bottom of the stage select screen.  “Also he’s got those rad long-range rainbow waves.”

“Those don’t do anything, though.”  Kris kicked their legs as they watched the stage preamble.  “They can’t hit anything.”

“Well, yeah… when you constantly dodge through them because you’re playing the fastest and lightest character in the roster.”

The announcer’s voice came on as the match began.

“ **Three…** ”

Asriel’s controller vibrated as a black hole opened up on the fighting stage, and a massive horned knight in sharp, curving charcoal plate armor with a billowing scaled cape and clawed alabaster gauntlets stepped out of it.

“ **Two…** ”

A golden light shimmered from above.  A shadowy, red-eyed shape fell out of it, landed on the stage, and in a swirl of flapping fabric and an audible shimmer of steel the darkness around them burst.  In its place stood a short, bright-eyed kid with a clever grin, wrapped in an azure tunic and a fluttering, crimson scarf.

“ **One…** ”

Hyperion pulled a jagged, gleaming saber out of a tear in space and time, brandishing it with a sizzle and a flourish.  Dueterro fished a tiny dagger, nicked and scratched and old, out of their sleeve and held it behind their back.

“ **FIGHT!** ”

The two characters smashed into each other in a flurry of clacking controllers.

“Did you turn on the item drops?”

Asriel rolled his eyes.  “Of course not. Item drops are dumb.”

Kris focused on the screen, tongue between their teeth.  “Yeah. If you’re super _boring_.”

Asriel frowned as his fingers flew over the buttons from years of muscle-memory.  “I just don’t think it’s all that fun to miss a charged Over-Z because you accidentally got carried into a banana peel and slipped off a ledge.”

Kris snickered.  “Woooow. Who made you the Fun Police?”

Asriel flicked his control stick in perfect time to a button press.  On the TV screen, Hyperion’s saber parried a dagger slash and chained it like lightning into a teeth-shattering uppercut that punted Dueterro off a ledge.  He smirked. “Well, I got nothing on gravity.”

Kris tapped one of the shoulder buttons.  Dueterro fired a grappling hook into the ledge and used the momentum to swing under the stage and come up on the other side with two throwing knives prepared.  Kris cackled gleefully. “HA! Not today, fuzzball!”

Asriel scoffed.  “Oh _woooow_.  You learned how to press the shoulder buttons.  I might as well just forfeit now.”

“If I win this match we’re turning items back on.”

“Heh.  You’re talking real big for such a short kid...”  Asriel giggled as Kris beaned a couch pillow off the back of his head.

Kris was the first to lose one of their three lives.  They misjudged the distance on one of Dueterro’s gap-closers, and Asriel clipped them with the tip of Hyperion’s charged Over-Z.  As Dueterro went pinwheeling off into the horizon, Asriel turned towards Kris, a half-formed sniggering jeer already percolating in his throat.  It was a classic one, too. Something about ‘getting the point’. Kris would love it.

Kris was staring daggers at the TV screen.  Their lips were thin and set in a scowl. Their knuckles were white on the controller.

The jab died in Asriel’s throat and left a rotten taste in his mouth.  He swallowed and wrenched his face into a reassuring smile. “Hey, don’t look so down.  It takes a while to get the hang of Dueterro’s range. Their Over-X doesn’t go nearly as far as you think it does.  If you grapple somebody before you—”

“I _know_ how to _play_ them.”

Asriel tried to say something, then closed his mouth.

The muffled, swing-time beeps and boops of the game’s fight music filled the space between them.  The low rumble of the house’s air ducts settled over the little basement den, chipped at by the constant _clackity-clack_ of fingers on old controllers.

Dueterro respawned in their Dark Form, one of their weirder abilities, triggered only when they were killed by the last other player left alive.  Wrapped in a cloak of shadow, their coloration was inverted, and their eyes glowed an ominous red on a featureless face. Their movements were jerky and unpredictable and somehow felt as though the character was glitched.  Asriel wasn’t intimidated; all he had to really worry about was the Dark Dagger’s longer reach and the new palette of teleporting dodge moves that actually had much longer active hitboxes than it felt like they should. Asriel could still parry them in his sleep.

He glanced over at Kris.  They were focused entirely on the TV, lips in a pout of concentration.  He noticed that they were trying to hold the controller in the claw-grip that Asriel used to reach as many buttons as possible.  If anything, it was causing them to make even more mistakes. Mistime attacks. Press the wrong buttons. There was no thought to their mad slashes, no plan or rhythm.  They were striking blindly, just trying to inflict as much damage on Hyperion as they could. Taking hits that they should’ve been able to dodge without effort.

Asriel looked back at the TV.  He was barely trying, and Kris was losing.

So the next time Kris went for a charged Over-Z, Asriel started a slow attack instead of raising his shield.

Hyperion screamed as he went flying off the stage and exploded in a shower of neutron light.

Asriel forced a laugh.  “Aww! Well, that’s what I get for trying to be fancy!”

Kris said nothing.  They watched the screen, waiting for Hyperion to respawn.

“Hey, um...  If you hold the controller normally you won’t have to reach so much to hit the H button.”

“That’s not what _you_ do.”

“I...  Well, my hands are bigger than yours...”

“Mmmm.”

Dueterro charged at Hyperion the moment he returned to the fight.  Kris pummeled the attack button, sending blow after blow after blow at their opponent; the Dark Dagger was a blur of twitching red lines frozen in split-second moments of time, gone in an eyeblink.

Asriel blocked most of those blows with his shield and allowed himself to lose ground.  He wiffed easy hits. He missed easy parries. He used slow attacks when he knew that they weren’t going to hit Dueterro.  All the while he grabbed little glances at Kris out of the corner of his eye, but Kris just kept staring at the TV, thin-lipped and silent.

Twice more Asriel failed to avoid a charged Over-Z.

Twice more Hyperion went screaming into the void.

“ **GAME!** ” called the announcer.

Asriel played up his sigh of defeat.  “Aaaahhhh, damnit. Well, I guess that means we’re turning on items.”  He checked his watch. “Hey, looks like we have just enough time for one more match before I gotta go.  You ready for a rema—”

Kris threw the controller across the room.  It rolled across the carpet and bounced off the TV dresser with a loud, sharp _CLONK_.

Asriel gaped.  “Kris! What was that for?!”

“Stop letting me win!”  Kris’ hands were clenched in his lap.  “I hate it! _I hate it!_ ”

“Kris, I...”  Asriel’s voice caught in his throat.  “I... I wasn’t letting—”

“Shut up!  _Shut up!_  You think I’m stupid or something?!”  Kris’ fists were trembling. “I’m _not_ stupid!  I know what you’re doing!  You’re just _letting_ me win!”

Asriel opened his mouth in a snarl.  “Yeah? So what? I thought you _liked_ winning.”

“I hate this!”  Kris punched the couch cushion he was sitting on.  “I _hate_ this!  I hate _you_!”

“I was just trying to be nice, Kris!”

“I don’t care!  _I don’t care!_  You think that you can just let me win and I’ll be happy cuz that’s _all you ever do_!  You don’t know what it’s _like_ to lose _anything_!”

“Hey, shut up!”  Asriel got up off the floor, fury in his eyes.  “Shut your stupid mouth! What do you know about losing things?!  You’re _eight_!  You haven’t had _time_ to lose anything yet!”

“Liar!”  Kris spat the word.  “Liar liar _LIAR!_  I hate you!   _I hate you!_ ”

“Kris, shut up.”  Asriel’s voice was shaking.  “Shut up. Shut your mouth right now.”

“NO!  I HATE YOU!”

“Okay, fine!  Good! _I’m glad!_ ”  Asriel’s voice echoed in the dim basement.  “I can’t wait to bring you back to the adoption center you little _brat!_  I can’t wait to tell them what a menace you are and how happy we are to get rid of you!  I hope they put you in an orphanage where you can’t get out and nobody else will be _cursed_ with you!”

Kris screamed and leapt from the couch.  They sank their fists into Asriel’s stomach, again and again, like an angry cat attacking a stone statue.  “I hate you! _I hate you!_ ”

“Kris, stop it!”  Asriel grabbed for their wrists.  “Stop it you idiot! You’re gonna get hurt!”

“You’d be glad!  You’d love it!” Kris flailed and fought and punched.  “You’d like it if I got hurt! Admit it!”

He finally got hold of Kris’ wrists and held them out to the sides.  “Kris! _Stop it!_  Stop it right n—”

“You should’ve gone away!”  Kris’ voice cracked as they struggled.  “It should’ve been _you_ , not dad!  You should’ve gone away!   _I hate y_ —”

“ _YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO WANTS HIM BACK, KRIS._ ”

Asriel’s chest heaved like a bellows.  His legs shook. Kris’ had stopped struggling, and their breath came in shudders.  They looked up at Asriel, wet streaks staining their face. The exuberant victory fanfare music of the match results screen warbled on in the background.

“Don’t _tell me_ that I don’t know what it’s like to lose.”  Asriel felt hot tears soaking his cheeks as an unbidden soup of bile words poured out of him.  “Don’t _tell me_ that I don’t know _what that’s like_.  What have _you_ ever lost?  He was _my_ dad before he was ever yours.  _You barely knew him._  And now because of _you_ he’s gone!  Because of _you_ he...”

Kris made a tiny, broken, choking sound.  Asriel’s face twisted in horror, but too late.

“W-wait… Kris, I didn’t…”

Kris tore out of Asriel’s grip and ran.  They ran around the couch, across the carpet, to the end of the basement hallway.  They charged up the steps two at a time, stumbling and sobbing.

“Kris!”

The sound of child-sized feet faded all the way upstairs until it abruptly ended when a bedroom door slammed.

 

*  *  *

 

Kris heard a knock on the bedroom door.  In the dark they rolled over and stared at the wall, crushing a pile of crayons and a few sheets of paper.

“Kris?  Hey…”

Kris grabbed their pillow and covered their head with it.

Asriel nudged the door open and peeked inside.  A thin sliver of light from the hall cut a yellow stripe across the ceiling.  “Hey… You’ve been up here a while. Do you want some dinner? We can make pizza rolls if you want.”

Kris drew their legs up to their chest and hugged them.

“Hey…”  Asriel entered the room and walked over to the bed.  “Kris… hey… You need to eat someth—”

“GO AWAY!”  Kris flung his pillow at Asriel’s head in a tiny shower of broken crayons.  It bounced off his shoulder and slumped to the floor. The lamp on the bedside table rattled slightly.  Kris’ ragged breathing fluttered over the faint, muffled sound of distant music coming from downstairs.

_Thunder only happens when it’s rainin’_

_Players only love you when they’re playin’_

_Say women, they will come and they will go_

_When the rain washes you clean you’ll know..._

_You’ll know..._

Asriel went over to his side of the room and picked up his desk chair.  He placed it next to Kris’ bed and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. 

“Kris… please come downstairs.  You need to—”

“ _Don’t tell me what to do!_ ”  Kris tightened into a little trembling ball of gangly limbs.  “Y-you don’t _care_ about me.  You’re just here cuz mom told you to come up h-here and get me to eat something.”

For half of a moment, Asriel reached towards Kris’ back, towards their narrow, shivering shoulders.  Then he grimaced and pulled his hand back. “Kris…”

“Go away.  I hate you.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kris’ body flinched.

Asriel took a deep breath and let it out slow.  He took another. “I… I… You’re right, Kris… I _am_ a liar.  I might as well be.”  He swallowed through a thick lump forming in his throat. “I… I-I came up here…  I wanted to tell you that I hadn’t meant those things I said. Th-that I was just angry and shouting…  But I… If I told you that, Kris… I’d be a liar. B-because… when I said those things, I meant them… Just for as long as I said it, I wanted it…  I wanted you t-to… to…” He hiccoughed and sniffed. “I w-wanted you t-to hurt. I w-wanted to hurt you… I w-wanted to see you h-hurting.”

Kris looked over their shoulder and stared at the tall, whippish, fourteen-year-old boy sitting in his old desk chair.  His face was in his hands, and his chest shuddered as he tried to keep talking.

“Kris…  I-I can’t say anything that will m-make this better.  I’m… I’m a horrible brother, aren’t I? I a-always h-have been.”  Asriel laughed, but it sounded like a cough. “I-I guess… in some weird way… I deserve all of this.  I d-deserve to… to lose everything… haha…”

Kris rolled back over and stared at the wall.  They’d gone still, and their breathing was even.

Asriel choked and took another, shuddering breath.  “S-so… I-I understand i-if you h-hate me Kri-is… I think…  I-I know I w-would hate me too…” He sniffed and swallowed around the lump in his throat.  “I-I’m not here t-to ask you to f-forgive me. Haha… I don’t th-think _I_ can forgive m-me…  a-and i-i-it’s o… it’s okay if you can’t do that…  I-I understand.”

Kris just stared at the wall, listening to the muffled sobbing and the music from downstairs.

_Like a heartbeat, drives you mad_

_In the stillness of remembering what you had_

_And what you lost_

_A-what you had_

_Ooh, what you lost..._

Asriel sniffed again and breathed, in and out, willing the convulsing in his lungs to stop.  “I… I just w-wanted to say, Kris… that I’m… I’m sorry.” 

The floorboards creaked as Asriel got up.  He put the chair back at his desk, sniffing and wiping his snout on his sleeve.  He scooped up the pillow, dusted it off, and set it at the foot of Kris’ bed. On his way out, he left the door just slightly ajar.

“If you get hungry, mom and I will be up for a little while longer.  We can make you whatever you’d like, okay?”

Kris shifted a little and said nothing.

As Asriel descended the staircase, he nearly slipped and had to catch himself on the banister.  His limbs still ached from karate, but right now he barely felt them. He barely felt anything. Negotiating the halfway curve of the stairs was like climbing down a mountain in a blizzard.

_Oh, thunder only happens when it's raining_

_Players only love you when they're playing_

_Say, women, they will come and they will go_

_When the rain washes you clean you'll know_

_You'll know_

_You will know_

_Oh, oh, oh, you'll know..._

He entered the kitchen on autopilot.  The CD player warbled away in a corner of the counter, just above the dishwasher and under the Flower of the Month calendar hanging on nail.  (Larkspur! Levity, lightness, joy!)  The soft, warm glow from the tarnished brass light fixture over the linoleum spilled across the table and cast long shadows into a dark living room.

Toriel was sitting in her usual chair, a cup of barely-touched tea resting on its plate in front of her.  She looked up as Asriel sat down. Her eyes were red and raw.

“How is Kris doing?”

Asriel picked up his own cup, half-empty, and stared into the tea leaves drifting at the bottom.  “I really don’t know. They barely talked to me.”

Toriel sighed.  “They will not speak to me.  I have already tried to talk to them twice since this afternoon.  They will not even look at me.”

Asriel swirled his tea leaves around pensively.  “...can’t say I blame them.”

Toriel’s wide, shocked eyes shriveled into a glare.  “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Asriel grimaced and raised the cup to his lips.  “Never mind.”

“No, I will _not_ ‘never mind’!”  Toriel leaned forward with a growl.  “I have put up with your smart remarks for almost a week because I thought you just needed to vent.  It has gone on far longer than is even remotely acceptable! I will not tolerate it another minute!”

“Sure thing, mom.”  Asriel shot her a look from behind the teacup.  “That’s good to know. You’ve been a real paragon of virtue yourself.”

“Stop that.  This _instant_.”  Toriel leveled a clawed finger at her son.  “I will not allow you to treat me like this.”

Asriel sneered.  “Oh, what’re you gonna do?  Throw me out?  Send me to live with dad?”

Toriel stood up.  Her face was stretched with rage.  “ _I WILL NOT BE MADE THE VILLAIN, ASRIEL._ ”

Asriel slammed the teacup down, spattering tea leaves all over the counter and his shirt.  “So what?!  Dad has to be the bad guy, here?!  Screw that!”

“Asg—”  Toriel choked and took a shuddering breath.  “ _Your father_ is not who you believe he is.”

“I know exactly who dad is.”

“You are too young!  There is too much that you _do not know_!”

“Wanna know what I know, mom?”  Asriel jerked his chair back and pointed towards the stairs.  “I know that Kris is up there, right now, and the _very least_ that you owe them is some kind of explanation.  And the straight-up fact of the matter is that there _isn't_ an explanation that's good enough.  Not for Kris.  There never _will_ be.”

Toriel shut her mouth.  She made a little muffled whimper and sat back down.

_She broke down and let me in_

_Made me see where I've been_

_Been down one time_

_Been down two times_

_I'm never going back again..._

Toriel looked up from her clasped hands.  She coughed and cleared her throat. “I… I am not saying that you are wrong, Asriel…  I just…”

Asriel sighed.  “Stop. I know what you’re gonna say.  I don’t need to hear it again.”

Toriel took a sharp breath to retort, and then let the air fizzle back out.  She put her face in her hands and took deep, shivering breaths. Asriel slumped in his chair and deflated a little.

They sat and listened to the gentle plucking and strumming of guitars float through the space between them. 

Asriel looked up from the tea stains on his shirt.  “Is this really your idea of ‘the best for everybody’?”

Toriel’s head snapped up, face livid, ready to launch into a fiery tirade.  Then she noticed something behind Asriel and gasped.

“Kris!”

Asriel stumbled out of his chair and turned around.

Kris was standing in the hallway.  Their hair was ragged and cowlicked.  Their shirt was disheveled and had damp stains down its front.  The light from the kitchen caught on their bloodshot eyes and wet cheeks.

Asriel moved forward, hands shaking, heart thudding.  “H-hey, Kris… Hey, buddy. You okay?”

Kris looked up at him glumly.  “You were arguing again…”

“I… We were.  I’m sorry if we disturbed you, Kris.”  Asriel bit his lip. “Mom and I are… We’re still trying to figure things out, okay?  It’s not easy a-and…” Asriel cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry that you have to be caught in it all.”

Toriel got up and moved into the kitchen.  “Kris, are you hungry? I can make you something to eat.  Whatever you would like. Whatever your favorite is.”

“Kris?”  Asriel kneeled down, sitting on the floor so his eyes were level with Kris’.  “Kris… it’s okay. You can talk to us. What’s going o—”

Kris charged at their brother and threw their arms around him.  They buried their head in his shoulder. Their spindly little body rocked and jerked as they cried into Asriel’s shirt.

For a second,  Asriel felt panic spike in his chest.  He froze, wrapped in tiny arms and the earthy stench of a child who hadn’t taken a bath all day.  He couldn’t see Toriel’s face, but she’d gone deathly silent.

He felt a staccato heartbeat against his chest.  He felt Kris’ muscles tightening and seizing. He felt a damp spot bleeding through his shirt’s left shoulder.

Slowly, tentatively, Asriel put his arms around Kris and pulled them into a hug.  Kris flinched at the touch, but they only gripped him harder.

“I-it’s okay, Kris…  We’ll be okay.”

“I-it’s not f-fair, Asriel…”  Kris’ voice stuttered and tripped.  “I-i-it’s n-not f-hhh-hhair…”

“I know…  I know it’s not…”  Asriel held on to his only sibling, rocking them back and forth.  “I know…”

Kris swallowed and choked.  “I-I... I w-want h-him ba... ack s-so mu-huh-huch...”

“I know...”  Asriel held on as tightly as he could.  He held on to everything. He held on and didn’t let go.  “I know... I do too. I-I’m s-sorry, Kris... I’m s-so sorry...  I’m so sorry...”

_You don't know what it means to win_

_Come down and see me again_

_Been down one time_

_Been down two times_

_I'm never going back again_

 

*  *  *

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank t3rminus and Cinturon Cadena for their assistance in the writing and editing process; Skyfayrer, Songfox, CravenFroids, Z-Money, snarkqueen, Leigusz, and FastFox for their moral support; and you, for reading.
> 
> Thank you all, very very much. I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> -Centi
> 
> Edit: Fixed some typos, and one instance of misgendering Kris.


End file.
